


Socks for William (155-words series)

by lone_lilly



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-21
Updated: 2011-08-21
Packaged: 2017-10-22 22:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/243261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lone_lilly/pseuds/lone_lilly





	Socks for William (155-words series)

  
Originally published: 16 Apr 2002 09:07:14 GMT

  
 **Title:** Socks for William (155-words series)  
 **Fandom:** X-Files  
 **Characters:** Mulder/Scully, William  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Spoilers:** through "The Truth"

  
  
**Boxing Fox**

"There is no fucking way I'm leaving!"

He was going to wake William, Scully thought. She hoped not. She didn't think  
she could have this argument with him, and be a mother to his son at the same  
time.

"Shh," she reminded him as he stalked around her living room. "You have to  
leave, Mulder. It's the only way."

"There has to be something else, Goddammit! When did you start trusting Kersch  
anyway?" He was so close to her now she could feel each of his words blowing  
hot air on her eyelids.

"When he said you would die if you stayed." The tears were falling down her  
face, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from his. He had to understand.

"I have already lived through your death once. You can't make me do that again!  
Please," she begged. "Don't make me do it again."

He wrapped her in his arms as she crumbled against him. He would go, if that's  
what she wanted. But he wouldn't give up.

  
  
**Cherish**

A man who is about to leave his family does not sleep. And neither does the  
woman he's leaving. This man would like nothing more than to make love to this  
woman while they are waiting to say goodbye, but he can't. It is too soon after  
she has given birth (it's only been sixty hours or so), and intercourse is not  
even an option yet. So instead he holds her and their child in his arms and he  
kisses them whenever he feels like it, because he can now and won't be able to  
later.

She cries. More than he's ever seen her cry, and he hates himself for agreeing  
to go, and he hates her for making him.

He strokes her hair and her back and her breast. He thinks the sexiest part of  
her is the hand that's stroking their son's cheek. They hold hands and he  
thinks that he would rather die in this moment than live tomorrow without them.

  
"Mulderrr," she whispers over and over, but he is silent. A man who will not  
talk, cannot say goodbye.

  
  
**Socks for William**

A man who is hiding from world-wide governments and intergalactic conspriators  
has little time to shop for baby clothes. But fathers make time. And Mulder was  
desperately trying to be a father, even if his son was a thousand miles away.  
So that's how he found himself in a baby outlet store wandering through the  
aisles of pastel onesies and fleece stuffed animals.

He had no intention of buying anything, really, but then he saw the smallest  
pair of blue socks he had ever seen. His heart threatened to explode in his  
chest at the memory that flooded him:

They were on her bed staring at the tiny baby between them. He raised William's  
baby foot in the air and Scully tickled the bottom of it, making the little  
toes curl.

"He has your feet," He told her. "Small."

She shot him a look that would have been fierce if she hadn't been smiling so  
hard.

And he kissed her because he had never been so happy in his life.

  
  
**Socks on the Fourteenth**

The small package had been waiting for her at her doorstep. No return address  
and only Scully written in block lettering, but she had known from the  
moment she saw it that it was from him.

Shed held her breath as shed bent over to retrieve it, juggling an armful  
of baby and reports, while unlocking her door and flipping on a light. One of  
the many adjustments of single motherhood was learning to balance her child  
with her work. Literally, she often thought.

He'd sent them both a Valentine's present. A pair of newborn socks for  
their five month old son (but then, he'd had no way of knowing the tiny puffs  
of cotton were *too* small). So, she placed one sock in the basket of quilting  
scraps her mother was collecting for Williams first birthday. The other sock  
she laid on the pillow she still thought of as his.

The small blue sock was her only clue that he was still alive, and she  
couldn't have asked for a better gift.

  
**Two Can Buy Socks**

The woman shifted her sleeping son in her arms and tried to look incredulous.  
He couldn't be serious.

"You want William to wear a frog suit to my mother's house?"

"Jeremiah was a bullfrog, Scully." Was he really leering at her in the middle  
of Babies R Us?

"That's only his middle name, Mulder. No one calls him that." It was a weak  
protest and she knew it. She hated to admit it, but it was a cute idea. Part of  
her was warming up to the green cotton onesie with the frog eyes on the hood.  
The part of her that only dressed her son in Baby Gap wasn't so thrilled, but  
she had promised their first real day as a family could be spent anyway Mulder  
wanted.

And Mulder wanted their son to be a frog.

"C'mon, Scully," he pleaded. He rubbed her back convincingly as he kissed their  
son's cheek.

"I promise to make you sing later," he whispered into her ear before scooping  
up the frog suit and walking towards the socks aisle.

Well, she smirked, when he put it that way.

  



End file.
